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Mark Formosa Reports

I was pleased to read in the Gazette that PC Andy Beake is returning to North Taunton to police the area in which he grew up.

Highly visible policing to prevent crime by patrolling the streets is what we need, rather than merely responding with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring when the criminals have long gone.

North Taunton in particular suffers from problems caused by around 40 to 50 youths roughly in the 14 to 18 years age range who have no respect for anybody or anything.

When I recently met residents in Priorswood to help them resist a council plan to concrete over green space for housing, I also heard of very serious anti-social behaviour problems in the area.

Residents are frequently intimidated and have had their property and their community vandalised, and they are often left to clean up the mess.

Some of these youths even urinate outside the entrances to people’s homes.

At a time when ‘slopping out’ has been discontinued in our prisons, ordinary working people in Taunton are having to ‘slop-out’ when they have not committed any crime.

I have therefore asked the Chief Constable, Colin Port, to take a personal interest in this matter and its solution, and I have suggested introducing new CCTV to advance the good work being done in
the east of the town.

I do not like the idea of a surveillance society, but something must be done in North Taunton to protect the public who are afraid of giving evidence in case of reprisals.

Decent CCTV would help police get the evidence to bring the culprits to book.

Long term, the solution is the return of right and wrong in British life along with a system that encourages good family values and, of course, a big increase in school discipline.

I also hope that PC Mark Loker will soon be well enough to return to his calling of making the streets of Taunton a much better place for the law-abiding.

He is another good policeman.

If you want to know more about how Conservatives will work with the police to tackle anti-social behaviour, then please email me at taunton@tory.org or visit www.markformosa.com

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